Applications to open a recreational marijuana business are now open.
Massachusetts regulators began welcoming applicants to start applying to cultivate and sell recreational marijuana at noon on Monday.
Applications are currently open to business given “priority certification.” Included in this category are medical marijuana dispensaries that already underwent the permitting process and “economic empowerment” applicants – applicants who have “experience in or business practices that promote economic empowerment” by working with communities with high drug arrest rates.
Multiple dispensaries have expressed interest in serving both medical and recreational marijuana users.
“We’ve got our incorporating documents, financial statements, operating agreements — all that stuff — ready to go,” Norton Arbelaez, director of government affairs for New England Treatment Access, which operates dispensaries in Brookline and Northampton, told the Boston Globe.
The applications will remain closed to this group until May when Massachusetts will begin accepting applications from small businesses including craft marijuana cooperatives and independent testing labs.
Applications will open further to marijuana retailers and transporters in June.
There are 22 registered medical marijuana dispensaries open for sale currently in Massachusetts serving just over 47,000 patients.
